I'm a great believer in setting goals and planning things out to make the best use of my time. Unfortunately, I'm also one of those people who gets himself organized with reasonable ease, but very soon slips back into bad habits.

Ann had a lot of good information and useful tips to share. She referred us to this excellent article:Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey?, by William Oncken Jr. and Donald L. Wass (with commentary by Stephen R. Covey) - If you've never read it before, I highly recommend it. Ann cleverly showed us how the same management technique could be applied to our personal lives.

In addition to the 'Monkey' article, two other points Ann made resonated with me. The first came when she said we not only had to learn to prioritize, we also had to learn to RE-prioritize or even DE-prioritize.

The second came during the Q&A session, when someone asked if it would be efficient to combine family time (like watching TV together) with catching up on social media. Ann recommended we didn't do that. 'Family time is family time,' she said. I found myself agreeing, and made a note to stop catching up on emails during my own 'family time'.

Starting today, I'm working to a new schedule. My 'To do' list is full and up-to-date. The day's divided into blocks of time, during which I have specific tasks to complete. So far, I'm doing well, but of course, tomorrow, the real test begins.

Since my day job requires a lot of time management and prioritizing, I'm actually not bad at it. The problem is, because my day job requires a lot of time management and prioritizing, I don't want my evenings (my writing time) to be that structured. So unless I have a deadline looming, I just go with the flow and do whatever appeals.

Organized chaose, like everything else in my life! When I need to organize the chaos just a little bit more, I make lists. It gives me a concrete sense of what needs doing rather than keeping it all fluttering in my head.

My system sounds a lot like yours: I have a list of projects, prioritized by deadline and importance, and a rough schedule of which I need to work on each week.

Then I have writing time blocked out on my calendar. Last week I redid my calendar, and started looking at where I can get more time. I try to review my schedule regularly to make sure the time I have blocked out actually works for me.

One thing that strikes me strongly is that you cannot manage what isn't your own! You have to be able to claim some time for yourself before you can use it for what you value.

That said, I've found it helps me a lot if I commit to doing things that I value - including writing - first thing in the morning. Then I know I have done something that really expresses who I am! If I get more time later in the day, well and good. But, if not, at least I did a little something in the morning. :)